Developer Tony Giarratana has transferred a pair of properties for $7.1 million to a joint venture that plans an apartment tower that would become one of Nashville’s tallest buildings.

The 32-story tower called SoBro will include more than 300 apartments, nearly 20,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space and more than 500 parking spaces. The project’s developer, WMG Realty Holding Co. LLC, is a joint venture of Giarratana’s SoBro Development Co., Wanxiang America Real Estate Group and Magellan Development Group of Chicago.

“Together with Magellan Development and Wanxiang America Real Estate Group, SoBro will be the first of our ‘next generation’ of residential towers that will significantly raise the bar for urban living in Nashville,” Giarratana said, adding that he and other partners have previously developed more than 1,100 residential units in Nashville, including condos.

The total development budget will be roughly $88 million, Giarratana said, citing hopes to begin the construction by year-end. However, a firm start date has not yet been determined.

The transfer of ownership from SoBro Development to WMG Realty is a key part of a financing package real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle is putting together, he added. The remaining equity and debt financing required will be finalized in the coming months.

Premier Parking of Tennessee LLC, which Giarratana owns, currently operates parking lots on the properties at 205 Second Ave. S. and 202 Third Ave. S. where the apartment tower will be built south of Broadway. The height of SoBro will be between that of the existing Pinnacle at Symphony Place office building and Encore condominium tower, Giarratana said.

Chicago-based Loewenberg Architects designed the SoBro tower. Co-developer Wanxiang America Real Estate Group is the real estate investment arm of Wanxiang America Corp., a unit of Wanxiang Group, China’s largest automotive component company by revenues. Co-developer Magellan is one of Chicago’s largest real estate and property development companies.

In 2008, Giarratana and his longtime development partner Bill Wardrop, with whom he developed The Cumberland apartments in 1996 and several other projects, purchased the 32,000-square-foot site at the corner of Second Avenue and Demonbreun for $5 million. A loan Ridgefield Properties made to help fund the purchase by SoBro Development was paid off Tuesday with equity invested by the three partners in WMG Realty Holding Co.

Giarratana had been pursuing development of the SoBro site for five years and previously released a rendering of the proposed project. Besides The Cumberland, his other residential projects include Viridian, Bennie-Dillon, Encore, Belle Meade Court and The Marquee at Belle Meade Town Center. Earlier this year, Giarratana paid $1.8 million for two parcels at Elliston Place and 21st Avenue in Nashville’s Midtown. He and Chicago-based LaSalle Investment Management plan apartments on the site.

SoBro will add to a growing field of apartment projects near downtown, with one previous estimate putting units in the development pipeline around Nashville at more than 10,000. Giarratana, however, sees a market still far from oversaturation or being overbuilt. “Urban residential in Nashville is still in its infancy,” he said. “We’re just scratching the surface.”